This book is a new approach to how we in the West understand China and Chinese culture. It challenges the master narrative of Confucianism and shows that ancestor worship has underpinned Chinese culture in many influential and vital ways and provides a nuanced and more efficacious paradigm through which Chinese culture may be viewed.It is an exposition and analysis of Chinese ancestor worship and its correlations, especially filial piety and ritual, and it shows the intrinsic importance of ancestor worship to Chinese culture. By using a practice theory-ritual-and communication theory approach this work highlights the relationship between the rituals of ancestor worship and their meaning within Chinese culture. In emphasizing the efficacy of ritual to cultural meaning it also questions and compares the master narrative of Confucianism in its role as the prime cultural symbol and paradigm of Chinese culture. China and Chinese culture is conventionally understood by the West through the paradigm and its articulated discourse of Confucianism. In order to ameliorate and overcome the epistemological problematic of a cross-cultural understanding of China, a new approach to the understanding of China and Chinese culture is proposed. The thesis approach is 'meta-disciplinary' and multi-viewed, and draws on a range of evidence and theories which focus on the problematic of 'cross-cultural understanding.'
- ISBN13 9781443824958
- Publish Date 29 September 2010 (first published 1 January 2010)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Cambridge Scholars Publishing
- Edition Unabridged edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 170
- Language English